From PAWs To Pixels - Jérôme Saravas, Animation Co-Supervisor

We continue this series of interviews From PAWs To Pixels with Jérôme Saravas, Animation Co-Supervisor at Mikros Animation in Montreal, on PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie :

Tell us about your journey into Mikros Animation?

I always had an eye on Mikros Animation work. I really wanted to work there. When Memo called me to be part of PAW Patrol, even if it was a really bad timing for me, I jumped on the opportunity. And I did well because I can rate my experience at Mikros as the best one I had in all my career.

What was your role on PAW Patrol: the Mighty Movie?

My roleS! I entered as a lead animator to lead a team of 8 animators. As the production pace augmented, a second animation supervisor was needed. Since I have some six years of supervision, they called me for the role. Then after we finished the animation of the movie, I stuck around as an animator to give life to marketing shots. Three roles!

*North West as “Mini” and Alan Kim as “Nano” in Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie from Spin Master Entertainment, Nickelodeon Movies, and Paramount Pictures.*

What was your first reaction after learning you’d be working on the Animation for PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie?

“How the hell am I gonna explain to my brand-new company that I am leaving already?”

What were the artistic and technical challenges of the movie?

Hummmm, every character needs to treat as a logo. So, there were a lot of design constraints. DOs and DONTS. But every production is like that so I should pick another one… Some features on the characters didn’t have visual feedback for the animators. We kinda had to guess. I don’t wanna be to specific, and it’s technical, but…That was a challenge. Like picking colors when you see in black and white for example.

Describe the movie in 3 words

Fluffy, action and awhawhawouuuuuuuh!

Callum Shoniker as “Rocky”, Christian Corrao as “Marshall”, Christian Convery as “Chase”, McKenna Grace as “Skye”, Luxton Handspiker as “Rubble”, Nylan Parthipan as “Zuma”, and Marsai Martin as “Liberty” in Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie from Spin Master Entertainment, Nickelodeon Movies, and Paramount Pictures.

What have you learned since working on PAW 2?

Good client exists!

Tell us a production memory!

aaaaaah! I remember when we had our first director reviews! I was coming from VFX industry at the time. In a a company that has a lot of hierarchy constraint, you know…. there is God, the king, the queen, and us, the expendable (we all know that lovely company…) Then, on Paw, we had our first director`s review and, first, all animators were invited, and second…. The director asked us, the animators, the expendable, the mortals, what we thinked!!! That was a choc…

Thanks Jérôme! To discover more stories from our teams, visit this link!